My Brain Short-Circuits for This

I have a confession.

For someone who claims to be a relatively smart, responsible human and someone who can calculate numbers, analyze situations, run a business, and (at least sometimes) do 'The Adult Things', I have one irredeemable weakness.

We’re talking a 'lose the thread of reality, babble in vowel sounds, and forget my own name because, oh my gooood' kind of weakness.

Why am I telling you this? Because in this episode of Different, Not Broken, I pull back the curtain on my not-so-secret life as a highly functional adult who simply cannot function when this one piece of (adorable) Kryptonite is present in my life.

But this episode is more than just confessions of the thing that makes me gooey. It's an honest exploration of what it means to embrace what makes our brains different.

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So at baseline, I'm

a smart person, right? I have a fairly high iq.

I can do a lot of smart people things, I can do a lot of

analysis. I'm pretty good with numbers. I can do hard

brain thinking. I can take a different. I can

look at things from perspectives that other people can't. All of that is, is

indicative of intelligence, which I greatly appreciate. Because without

that, I would have nothing going for me.

Nothing. So I appreciate that. At least

for my lack of social skills and my

deeply seated sensory issues and my

complete lack of desire to do anything the way that

you're supposed to do it. At least I have a couple

of IQ points in my favorite. Like, that's super nice. Thank you, universe. You did

me a solid. However, I spend a lot of time

wondering if I was given

a higher ish IQ so

that the average overall

is not like 40 when

I see a dog. Because my IQ

goes from fairly high and

able to hold very intelligent, high level conversations with people

to basically squealing and making non

existent sounds or nonsensical sounds. When a

dog comes by and there it's. It is involuntary.

It is completely involuntary. There is nothing I can do to control

it. It could be a dog I've seen a thousand times. It could be my

own dog. It could be the

neighbor's dog who I see pretty much every day and who,

by the way, is Bruno's girlfriend. They love each other.

Don't tell Odin that. I feel like that's gonna. That will create

some discord in our home because

the two of them have something weird going on. But Bruno

is such a gentleman when he sees the neighbor's dog. He

is never a gentleman, but she goes to the

other. We have a metal fence in the backyard and she's small enough to

like stick most of her head through the fence. Thankfully not all of it, because

then I would just have the head of a dog and the two of them

see each other and they run to each other and they do like little kissings

through the fence post is so cute. And then he sits there and then

he always pees. Always. It doesn't matter if he just

went pee. When he sees her, he pees again, which I think is him

saying that this is mine, but I don't know that aside from

the fact that every time he sees her he pees. But they like run back

and forth with each other and he doesn't ever bark at her, and he barks

at everything. And so they have like, they have like a whole little

relationship and I take him outside and I go sit. And then I

just watch them be best friends in the backyard. And it's so cute. And

he comes up and I say, oh, you're such gentleman. You're such

a. You're so sweet. You're such a night dog. Oh, you're so

cute. And then my husband looks at me and goes, what is wrong with

you? He's

like, none of that was English. None of those were words.

And the dog doesn't understand you regardless,

so whose benefit are you doing that for?

And I don't have an answer for him except to say

my own dopamine. Fight me. But he

comes up to me, it could be the fifth time I've seen him, and I

say, you. Hey, yo. Oh, you're so sweet. Hey, you sweet boy. Oh, you're just

my sweet boy. Why are you such a sweet boy? And then my husband says,

that is not a sweet boy. That is a boy who runs around and puts

his slobbery face all over my counters every day. And I'm constantly cleaning up after

him. And I'm like, you just don't understand him.

He just needs your love. And maybe he thinks your love is on the

counter. I don't know. You knew we were getting

house horses who are going to be tall enough to just put their faces on

the counter. You knew this. You were there when we

did it. You should not be surprised. But anyway,

I think my theory is

that I got, like, high level of

intelligence on regular, just at baseline,

so that when it dips frequently,

it balances out to, like, average intelligence, because

otherwise I would be in trouble because

there is no activity happening in my brain when I see

a dog aside from gimme da dog. I want a

dog. That's a dog.

So, yeah, just if you need me to be intelligent,

which does happen fairly frequently, just

make sure there are no dogs around because I cannot make any

promises. And if we're, like, on a zoom and your dog walks up, two things

are going to happen. One, I'm going to be like, oh, I want to see

the dog. But then two, I'm going to get really frustrated

with time and space and

telekinesis. I think it is because I want to pet your dog.

And short of punching the screen, I cannot do that because you're not in the

same place as I am. So please send me pictures of your

dogs. I always want pictures of your dogs. But also

bring me the baby, because I both want to see pictures of

your dogs and I want your dogs. I'm a very

reasonable person on a normal day,

like measured, good with money.

I don't make a lot of excessive purchases.

I'm good at making money. I'm good at running a business.

I'm good at telling my husband when we don't need more expensive things that

he just wants to have. I can balance the

books. I don't do, I don't do anything to excess,

except maybe caffeine.

But if I had 45 dogs and you wanted to bring me a 46,

that would be like, yes.

Like my husband thinks that two dogs is enough. I

think he is incorrect. There are many, many

more dogs in the world. And I was, I

really, really wanted Chihuahua. Had many Chihuahuas and I

loved them. And I love the idea of having 160

pound Great Dane and a 3 pound Chihuahua. I think that's

hilarious. And we can get a little pouch and

put it on Great Danes and put the Chihuahua in pouch. That would be

hilarious. He says no

to this. And I was talking to a friend of mine who

is an accountant and he said,

chihuahuas. A Chihuahua with two Great Danes

is basically in the margin of error. You don't even count it.

So I don't see the problem

here. Just get the Chihuahua. He was like, it's.

You would just write that off as waste. Exactly.

So I want all of the puppies. And when I say

puppies, I mean dogs. I don't care how old they are. I just want all

of the dogs. And also, I am

not ever going to be reasonable about dogs. I could have just gotten a dog

yesterday and I would be like, we need another dog.

And I feel like my husband being supposedly reasonable about

this is stifling my creativity and he should be

punished.

I have no idea. I have no idea. I was just thinking about it this

morning when Bruno was like climbing on top of me and I was like, you're

so cute. Why are you the cutest boy in the whole world? You're so sweet

and you're so gentle and I love you so much.

And Kyle looks at me and he's like. I was like,

josh, he just wants your love. Just give him love. And he's like, I. I'm

not giving that slobbery bastard love. I let him live. That is

love. And then I was listening to

myself going,

give me that. I want that dog. Oh, I'm dead down.

He did a baby. Look at, look

at him. I don't, I don't know how. I don't know that. Look at him.

He did the baby. He did the. That's the wrong hand. He did the

baby anyway. No, that

wasn't an invitation. I don't actually like you that much. Go away. My kids occasionally

will watch TV in my room, which means I don't have most of

the apps logged in. We only have YouTube TV logged in. And also, as I

said before, I don't want to pick an app. So if

they're coming to watch TV in my room, they're watching YouTube TV, because I am

not changing the app, because that is so much work,

okay? And so they're.

They're trying to. So I said, pick something to watch. And my youngest goes, well,

I want to watch Paw Patrol. I don't know if she actually said that, but.

And I was like, that's not on right now. And she goes, it's

always on. You just go to the app. And I was like, no, that's not

how television actually works. Scroll down until you find

something you want to watch. She's like, what do you mean, find

something? Okay. So we scrolled together, and she was like, all

right, I want to watch this. I was like, okay, fine. So I click it,

and then the commercials come on, and she's frantically hitting the

next button. She's like, I don't wanna watch this.

And I was like, you can't. You can't just skip them. We're watching

live television. She's like, I don't know what that means. And I

just wanna watch Paw Patrol. I was like, man, these

kids have a very different childhood than I do. She had no idea.

So, yeah, then, Then. Then

my oldest was there. This was a couple years ago now.

And she said, mom, can I watch TV on your

tv? And I said, yeah, but just remember, like, you. I don't have any of

the apps on it, so you're just gonna have to watch whatever's on. She's like,

that's fine. I'm just gonna scroll until I find something. And I was like, whatever.

And she's usually pretty good. Like, she picks things that she's allowed to

watch. I don't worry about her, like, turning on Dateline.

And so she picks things that she's allowed to watch. And so I was

like, whatever, that's fine. And so I hand her the remote, and I

went in to the bathroom to go do my makeup. I don't remember where we

were going. And I didn't really.

I didn't hear much. Whatever. And I see her kind of, like,

with the remote, and then it gets quiet, and she, like, settles

in because I can. I can see my bed from where I'm standing in the

bathroom. And all of a sudden, she's

like, oh, this. The Golden Girls theme fills

my bedroom. And I was like, all right. I have done

one thing right. I may have done everything else wrong as a

parent, but I have done this one thing right.

Anyway, so I just want to turn on a TV and get a channel. I

don't want to have to work that hard. It's too much work. I

just want to turn on my TV to have immediately

selected murder and then not think

about anything else. Don't make me pick my. Don't make me

pick my noise, please. Thank you. This has been a public Service announcement from L2.